Never Mind the Bullocks, Here's the Science Read Online Free
Author: Karl Kruszelnicki
panic stop in their entire driving career—unless the Brake Assist system turns it on for them. You need to practise braking hard while you’re still alive, to avoid bringing your driving career to a dead stop…
Safety and Cost
There are two different philosophies regarding safety features in cars.
One philosophy is that you get the extra safety features only if you pay extra. This is what happened to me when I changed over from a large seven-seat car to a smaller five-seat car. In a collision, having extra mass helps you survive. In the smaller car, we no longer had the extra mass. The ‘equaliser’, in this case, was the safety feature of lots of airbags. Unfortunately, the only way we could get lots of airbags was to get the luxury model with dead cow and dead tree (which we didn’t particularly want), reversing camera (handy, but we could live without it), Satellite Navigation (handy, but not a necessity) and the additional airbags (essential).
The other philosophy is to maximise safety. In other words, all new cars (even the cheapest) should be equipped with all the latest safety features.
I think the latter should be the only option.
Absinthe’s Murky Past
I remember the incident with brilliant clarity—or at least I think I remember it, bearing in mind the fallibility of memory. I was a first-year university student studying physics and hanging out in Wollongong’s only coffee bar (at that time). The subject of absinthe, the dazzling green alcoholic drink with the very murky past, came up in conversation. I declared that it was the ‘wormwood oil’ in absinthe that drove its adherents mad.
How easy it is to be both confident and wrong. It seems that the wormwood oil was innocent. The culprit was the very high level of alcohol that was needed to keep the wormwood oil dissolved and the emerald-green liquid crystal clear.
Absinthe History
Absinthe was often called the ‘Green Fairy’, because of its colour. It was very popular with Parisian artists, poets and intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th century. Absinthe was thought to stimulate the creative juices in a special way that alcohol did not. However, it exacted a hefty price—a disease associated with absinthe, called ‘absinthism’, which involved terrifying hallucinations, enfeeblement, epileptic attacks and insanity. The attacks of ‘absinthism’ seemed to be very different from the ones associated with alcohol, and were blamed on wormwood oil.
Wormwood is a small shrub belonging to the daisy family. Its essential oil has been used medicinally for thousands of years—against intestinal worms, for labour pains, and for liver and gallbladder complaints. In medieval times, wormwood oil was used in alcoholic drinks in the Val-de-Travers region of western Switzerland.
In 1797, a Major Dubied and his son-in-law, Henry-Louis Pernod, opened the first absinthe distillery in the Val-de-Travers region. Absinthe’s popularity spread quickly, and in 1805 Pernod opened another factory over the border in Pontarlier, France.
Absinthe was widely used by French troops in the Algerian conflicts of the 1830s and 1840s, because of its effectiveness as a tonic and an antimalarial medication. It was also thought ‘that it is an agreeable bitter, that it gives an appetite, and that it gives tone to weak digestions’. The troops brought their love of absinthe back home to France with them.
In France, by the 1870s, 5 pm was l’heure verte (the ‘green hour’) when people gathered in bars to drink absinthe. Various rituals and ceremonies became associated with the preparation of the absinthe. Spoons were made with special slots to allow the absinthe to drain through a sugar cube sitting in the spoon. (The sugar counteracted the bitter taste of the absinthe.) Occasionally the absinthe-soaked sugar cube was ignited, with much ceremony. And adding water to the absinthe could lead to a magical clouding of the previously clear drink.
Absinthe had a
Safety and Cost
There are two different philosophies regarding safety features in cars.
One philosophy is that you get the extra safety features only if you pay extra. This is what happened to me when I changed over from a large seven-seat car to a smaller five-seat car. In a collision, having extra mass helps you survive. In the smaller car, we no longer had the extra mass. The ‘equaliser’, in this case, was the safety feature of lots of airbags. Unfortunately, the only way we could get lots of airbags was to get the luxury model with dead cow and dead tree (which we didn’t particularly want), reversing camera (handy, but we could live without it), Satellite Navigation (handy, but not a necessity) and the additional airbags (essential).
The other philosophy is to maximise safety. In other words, all new cars (even the cheapest) should be equipped with all the latest safety features.
I think the latter should be the only option.
Absinthe’s Murky Past
I remember the incident with brilliant clarity—or at least I think I remember it, bearing in mind the fallibility of memory. I was a first-year university student studying physics and hanging out in Wollongong’s only coffee bar (at that time). The subject of absinthe, the dazzling green alcoholic drink with the very murky past, came up in conversation. I declared that it was the ‘wormwood oil’ in absinthe that drove its adherents mad.
How easy it is to be both confident and wrong. It seems that the wormwood oil was innocent. The culprit was the very high level of alcohol that was needed to keep the wormwood oil dissolved and the emerald-green liquid crystal clear.
Absinthe History
Absinthe was often called the ‘Green Fairy’, because of its colour. It was very popular with Parisian artists, poets and intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th century. Absinthe was thought to stimulate the creative juices in a special way that alcohol did not. However, it exacted a hefty price—a disease associated with absinthe, called ‘absinthism’, which involved terrifying hallucinations, enfeeblement, epileptic attacks and insanity. The attacks of ‘absinthism’ seemed to be very different from the ones associated with alcohol, and were blamed on wormwood oil.
Wormwood is a small shrub belonging to the daisy family. Its essential oil has been used medicinally for thousands of years—against intestinal worms, for labour pains, and for liver and gallbladder complaints. In medieval times, wormwood oil was used in alcoholic drinks in the Val-de-Travers region of western Switzerland.
In 1797, a Major Dubied and his son-in-law, Henry-Louis Pernod, opened the first absinthe distillery in the Val-de-Travers region. Absinthe’s popularity spread quickly, and in 1805 Pernod opened another factory over the border in Pontarlier, France.
Absinthe was widely used by French troops in the Algerian conflicts of the 1830s and 1840s, because of its effectiveness as a tonic and an antimalarial medication. It was also thought ‘that it is an agreeable bitter, that it gives an appetite, and that it gives tone to weak digestions’. The troops brought their love of absinthe back home to France with them.
In France, by the 1870s, 5 pm was l’heure verte (the ‘green hour’) when people gathered in bars to drink absinthe. Various rituals and ceremonies became associated with the preparation of the absinthe. Spoons were made with special slots to allow the absinthe to drain through a sugar cube sitting in the spoon. (The sugar counteracted the bitter taste of the absinthe.) Occasionally the absinthe-soaked sugar cube was ignited, with much ceremony. And adding water to the absinthe could lead to a magical clouding of the previously clear drink.
Absinthe had a
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